


A Weapon That Wields Itself

by Mynameisdoubleg



Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior, Classic Battletech (Tabletop RPG)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29859981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mynameisdoubleg/pseuds/Mynameisdoubleg
Summary: A bitter, maimed survivor who fought on the losing side of the Fed-Com civil war is manipulated into becoming a tool in a dark scheme to destabilize the tottering realm. Little the manipulators know that the survivor has plans of his own.An experiment in a "found narrative" style, supposedly pieces together from different sources in different formats.





	A Weapon That Wields Itself

_Avalon City_

_New Avalon_

_Federated Suns_

_5 October, 3067_

When the weather is sunny, the patients/inmates are allowed to go down to the beach.

The water is so clear that boats appear to float above the sea bottom. The war is over, so security is light. Some play in the transparent waves, others sit in the silky, soft white sand and gather about games of Drax, Pass the Prince or Five Houses. The broken ones are led to the water’s edge, in the hope that some brightness in this day will penetrate, somehow reach the person inside.

The nurse wheels the former Leftenant Ryce Fallows to the beach, too, close enough that he can dabble his feet, though he feels nothing. Not since his ejector seat landed wrong. The nurse is blandly pleasant with a blandly pleasant face and she means well, though she means nothing to Ryce. He’ll never be anything but a patient to her, nor she anything but a nurse to him, so what’s the point? He sees himself as a chipped cup, a cracked bowl, a broken weapon.

Some of the other patient-prisoners call and wave to him, and Ryce smiles and waves absently back. Nobody invites him to join their card games and he does not ask. He sits and watches them without interest. A power boat chortles to life and glides across the bay, ripples spreading in its wake like unintended consequences. A sudden wave bursts upon the shore and soaks Ryce to the knees. The nurse, flustered, apologetic, hastily wheels him back. Ryce doesn’t mind.

He wishes a bigger wave would come, one big enough to drown them all.

_6 October, 3067_

::DATA SHEET::

(REF ID N30661218.FCCW.FS.NA.RC.NP)

Battle of Noah’s Glacier

Conflict: FedCom Civil War >> Battle of New Avalon >> Brunswick/Rostock Campaign

Date: 11-19 December 3066

Location: Arkwright Mountains, Rostock continent, New Avalon

Forces engaged

  * (Allied/Pro-Victor) Elements of 23rd Arcturan Guards, Davion Light Guards
  * (Loyalist/Pro-Katherine) Elements of 5th Donegal Guards



Notable Commanders

  * (Allied) Marshal Jessica Quarles, Leutnant-General Candace Silbar
  * (Loyalist) Hauptmann-General Ursa Potroy, Leftenant Ryce Fallows



Strength

  * (Allied) 34 BattleMechs, 50-60 tanks, 12 artillery pieces, 12 aerospace fighters, 500-600 men
  * (Loyalist) 16 BattleMechs, 23 tanks, 4 artillery pieces, 16 conventional fighters, 120-200 men



Objectives: As part of Operation CLEARWATER, Allied forces sought to drive Loyalists from mountains overlooking the port of Lycee and Scolaire Bay, in preparation for the amphibious assault on Albion continent. Loyalist forces sought to deny the use of the port to the Allies.

Result

Total victory for Allied forces and annihilation of defending Loyalists

  * Initial assault by two companies of the Davion Light Guards repelled with heavy losses. Loyalist positions on the mountain slopes had clear lines of sight on the Guards approach and were able to call down accurate fire. Fierce fighting about Point 4269, held by Loyalists under the command of Leftenant Ryce Fallows.
  * The Guards were reinforced by a combined-armed battalion from the 23rd Arcturan Guards. Allied forces achieve local air superiority and used air power and artillery to begin systematically reducing Loyalist strongpoints.
  * The fiercest fighting was again about Point 4269. Two frontal assaults were repelled before the Loyalist position was encircled and attacked from both flanks and rear. Leftenant Ryce Fallows fought on despite the destruction of his command, until his BattleMech was destroyed [Note AMH 10-03: Leftenant Fallows’ ejector seat failed to deploy its parachute, possibly due to sustaining damage after being deliberately targeted. Per AGC investigation FC-1-RC-302, no charges filed].



Casualties/Losses

(Allied) 14 BattleMechs destroyed, 8 heavily damaged, 63 dead, 98 wounded, 9 missing

(Loyalist) 11 BattleMechs destroyed, 5 heavily damaged (= captured). 49 dead, 61 wounded (= captured), 12 unwounded captured

SEE ALSO: Albion Campaign, Battle of New Avalon, Loyalist Internees, Reintegration

_7 October, 3067_

<Transcript>

Interview with Regent Yvonne Steiner-Davion/

Avalon Isle Herald/07.10.3067

Interviewer (I): Madame Regent, you are scheduled to leave at the end of the month for the Fourth Whitting Conference on Tharkad. The admission of the Word of Blake to the Star League, a more robust response to incursions on the Clan Front, the loosening of restrictions on trade in technology and the easing of cross-border immigration are all on the table. Can you tell our viewers what message will you be bringing to the members of the Star League?

Regent Yvonne Steiner-Davion (Y): Yes, well, obviously this Conference is happening at a very sensitive time for the Federated Suns. I am keenly aware of the devastating losses we have suffered in the conflict between the Precentor Martial and the former Archon of the Lyran Alliance.

I: Your brother and sister, you mean?

Y: Keenly aware of these losses, as I said, and of the need to restore faith and trust in the state, its agencies and the brave men and women who defend our freedoms. There is a cliché, but I feel it is currently an apt one: Charity begins at home. And another: Put your own house in order. Whatever our treaty obligations to the Star League, I intend to make the people of the Federated Suns and the rebuilding of this great state of ours my first priorities.

I: You mean you will not commit any forces to the Clan border?

Y: I mean our people are tired of war. We’ve seen first-hand how destructive it can be.

I: Will you vote in favor of accepting the Word of Blake? Or abstain? Their organization is staunchly opposed to ComStar, where your own brother still serves as Precentor Martial. Some might see that as a conflict of interest.

Y: If such a motion is tabled, I will give it careful and serious thought. It would be premature to speculate further at this time.

I: You would recuse yourself?

Y: It would be premature to speculate. It may not come to that. We shall see.

I: In official news releases from the Word of Blake, they seem quite certain they will be accepted. Would rejecting their application potentially cause friction with them, or perhaps even embroil us in yet another war?

Y: I’ll take a good, long, hard look at any motion presented, consult with my advisors and the other council members at the Conference, and make my decision. I can’t promise any more than that.

I: Really, Madame Regent? Frankly, that sounds a lot like the kind of back-room politicking that saw Katherine usurp your position in the first place. Don’t you think that after the last five years of war between your elder siblings, the people are owed a greater degree of clarity on the direction of the ship of state?

Y: I think the people understand that a good leader cannot afford to burble every bit of strategy she has in public simply because some pretty-faced interviewer from a local network asked her to. Every decision I make will be made with the good of the Federated Suns foremost in my mind. I look forward to working together with everyone, people of all ages and from every walk of life, in healing our state.

I: Everyone? Including those who supported Katherine?

Y: For the victims, part of the healing process is ensuring the guilty are punished.

_8 October, 3067_

<ALBION PROVINCIAL POLICE Crimes reported in Avalon City 08.10.3067 Retrieved 00:00 LOCAL>

1

body of an unidentified male (age est. 30-35) discovered floating in Fourth Succession War Victory Canal nr. Camlann Locks w/ disfiguring head trauma, probable homicide [investigation ongoing]

84

assaults or other violent crimes

6

cases of pro-Katherine/anti-Victor or other anti-social propaganda [Note: Possible connection to ComStar faction Word of Blake under investigation]

1

case of fraud, involving an attempt to impersonate a member of House Steiner-Davion. Additional charges for resisting arrest and injury to responding officers [investigation ongoing]

46

burglaries including 1 theft reported from Sortek Memorial Hospital of significant quantities of sedatives, benzodiazepines, alpha blockers and serotonin reuptake inhibitors. No signs of forced entry, suggesting a member of the staff may be involved [investigation ongoing]

127

other thefts

146

vehicular accidents involving one fatality and 83 injuries

12

missing person cases ongoing

1

case of unlicensed operation of a class-II ’Mech in an urban area—device impounded pending payment of fine [owner intends to dispute in court]

_9 October, 3067_

I help those in need.

Some of the more excitable members of my order disapprove of my methods, but since when has timidity and hesitation ever served our cause? We cannot simply sit and wait and hope the prophecy fulfills itself—sometimes fate needs a helping hand. I help those in need, and in so doing, help us achieve our destiny. And if I and other like-minded members must work in secret, well then, so be it. The others would only bleat about the cost and the risk, if they knew.

Well, of course there’s a risk, for myself, for those I help, there are always risks, but we’re talking about people at the very bottom of a very long ladder here. It’s not like they have a lot of choices or people are just clamoring to give them a hand up. At least my way, they have a chance.

My way isn’t easy, but nothing worthwhile is. What do I demand? What does it take? Everything. They must sacrifice everything. If they fail, then they fail totally, and we excise any trace of both those that fail and of the help they were offered. That’s the price. But in return, I give them what they need most: Value. Belonging. Purpose.

As a species we’ve been at war for so long that we’ve grown tired of failure. Success, victory, glory, these are the things we crave. Valiant, victorious veterans, yes, those the people love, hold parades for and pin medals on and marry their children to. This little civil war of yours has rather complicated things though, hasn’t it? It’s hard to celebrate a victory over yourself, for no greater cause than a family squabble.

That’s not even mentioning those who were on the losing side. Oh, that’s a stain that won’t come clean any time soon.

It’s not their fault, of course. They were just being good (i.e. stupid, brave and loyal) soldiers, just following orders (stupid, selfish, pointless orders), and they weren’t the ones who created a system where one’s loyalty is to one’s regiment, feudal lord and commander, rather than to the state or the common people. They are not to blame.

That’s what I offer. Redemption. Salvation. A chance to wipe away the stain on their honor.

And a chance for revenge on those who stained it in the first place.

_12 October, 3067_

... (Note continues from page 3 in the same handwriting)

Subject NA_67_29 (29F): Died during surgery. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_30 (21F): Refused to undergo surgery and attempted to escape facility. Terminated by security staff. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_31 (37M): Died following surgery, due to infection in the brain at implant site. Incinerated

Subject NA_67_32 (34M): Died during surgery. Investigation of facility site by local police necessitated hasty exit. Implants forcibly removed and body abandoned.

Subject NA_67_33 (26F): Died following surgery. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_34 (28M): Successful surgery. Fatal allergic reaction to compound DN-A1. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_35 (26M): Successful surgery. Violent psychosis following administration of compound DN-A2. Subject terminated by security staff. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_36 (27M): Successful surgery. Catatonic withdrawal following administration of compound DN-A3. Subject removed from life support. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_37 (26M): Successful surgery. Stabilized with compound DN-A4. Unable to establish link. Subject terminated by security staff. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_38 (29M): Successful surgery. Stabilized with compound DN-A4. Link established. Initial attempts at movement control resulted in accidental destruction of testbed device and death of subject. Incinerated.

Subject NA_67_39 (25M): Successful surgery. Stabilized with compound DN-A4. Link established but movement and motor control did not meet program targets. Subject terminated by security staff. Incinerated.

_13 October, 3067_

COMSTAR HPG MESSAGE NV-NA#200045797969

TO: RYCE FALLOWS

<ID ryce.fallows.nv30420326.sortek.memorial.hospital>

FROM: SAMSON FALLOWS

<ID samson.fallows.nv30180313.fallows.estates.private>

SUBJECT: (None)

TEXT: I write this only to save your mother the pain of seeing your name should you try to contact us. Needless to say, the AFFS has informed us of your treachery, and your betrayal of your oath, the Federated Commonwealth, and our brave and selfless leader, First Prince Victor Steiner-Davion.

I am staggered. Simply staggered. I have always sought to teach you the values of honor, duty and obedience. I cannot fathom how you could betray those values so utterly and completely. Victor Steiner-Davion has been fighting for us, for all of us, for the entire Inner Sphere, and this is how you repay him? This is a stab in the back. It is unforgiveable.

The AFFS has also informed us of your injury, and I view this as your just and rightful punishment for the pain and suffering you have inflicted upon the brave men and women fighting for our rightful ruler, on your mother, brother and myself, and indeed, upon our entire state.

I have legally disowned you, and you are now barred from inheriting any of our estates or other assets. All will go to your brother. Any further communication will be blocked or returned unopened, and all our staff have been informed you are not to be admitted into any of our properties. I am destroying or deleting all files and image data related to you in any way, shape or form.

Although you may be alive through some ugly mischance of cruel fate, you are dead to us.

SIGNATURE: (None)

ATTACHMENTS: (None)

_15 October, 3067_

Sometimes they are allowed guests. Not many come. It’s mostly just family members. There are often grey faces, disappointment, shame, sometimes tears, and so Ryce is relieved that nobody thinks or offers to come and visit him.

There is a woman who comes and speaks with those like Ryce who have nobody. She is from some charity or other, he was told once but promptly forgot. She wears a long red robe and is very tall and hurtfully beautiful. She radiates sympathy and understanding with such force Ryce can feel it from across the room, feel its concentrated intensity like the pull of a singularity, forcing him to watch her and only her from the moment she appears.

She tells everyone just to call her ‘Adrestia.’

Ryce is in love with her, as all the rest of the inmates are. She walks with a languid, easy grace. He hates her.

To escape her presence he retreats outside, to the gardens behind the hospital, with their view of the bay and the transparent waters below. The beach is empty now.

Adrestia steps beside him, as though emerging from a hidden fold in the air, and crouches down beside his chair.

“Leftenant Ryce Fallows,” she says, and the thrill of hearing his name upon her lips is like touching a live wire.

“Nobody uses the rank anymore,” he says gruffly, to cover his embarrassment.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says as if she means it. “You earned it, and you fought bravely. I heard it took an entire company to defeat your lance. There should be no shame in that.”

Ryce cannot stomach the thought of being pitied, not by this image of perfection. “Yeah, well, plenty of shame in being beaten.” He gestures at his legs in disgust. “Shame isn’t the worst of it.”

“You deserve better.”

That is too much. He is afraid he might begin to cry. He spins the chair away, and begins to angrily wheel himself back towards the hospital. Instantly, Adrestia is at his side again, easily keeping pace no matter how fast he tries to go.

“Let us help you, Leftenant Ryce Fallows.”

“I don’t need your charity.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder and he is surprised to feel corded strength there. Each finger digs into his skin like an iron talon. “Save your poison for your enemies, Leftenant,” she says, voice changing from sweet commiseration to stinging rebuke, the words like a whip. Ryce flinches as though struck, but cannot draw away, pinned to his chair by the vise grip on his shoulder. “Don’t reject our outstretched hand out of petty pride. Not when we have so much to offer. We can do things for you that you wouldn’t believe.”

“Can you help me walk again?” He tries to sneer, but the words feel brittle and fragile in the face of her total and terrible self-assurance.

A slow and knowing smile spread across her beautiful features, and for a moment it is the most terrifying thing Ryce has ever seen. “Oh, I think we can do better than that, Leftenant.”

He has a hundred questions, a thousand, but can’t find the words. All he can babble is the first one, the most inane: “Who _are_ you?”

She winks and lets go his shoulder, raising a long finger to her full lips.

The door to the garden swings open and Doctor Vale Szarkas comes wandering out. He’s young and new to the hospital, clothes permanently wrinkled, rumpled, always looking distracted and harried. Szarkas takes a few steps and stops when he notices the two, a look of cloudy confusion on his face.

“Is everything alright?” Szarkas asks.

Adrestia gives him a dazzling smile, and the young doctor looks at his shoes, blushing. “I gave the Leftenant some advice on the first ... step to recovery,” she laughs a little, low and soft. Then to Ryce: “No, don’t get up, I’ll see myself out.”

_16 October, 3067_

<Patient Exit Interview/Transcript/Sortek Memorial Hospital (Excerpt)>

Participants: Four (4) Dr. Eileen Odeyemi (EO), Dr. Vale Szarkas (VS), Major Arne Tan, Adjutant-General’s Corps (AT), Ryce Fallows (RF)

EO: I don’t think there’s anything more we can do for Fallows. His physical injuries have healed as much as they ever will. I recommend he be immediately discharged.

VS: With his skill set, or rather lack thereof, I think reintegration could be difficult.

EO: Well, we can’t keep him here indefinitely. Unity, it’s already been six months.

VS: Any hope for prosthesis?

EO: No. Those still require functional nerve endings. He’d need something plugged directly into his brain, and I doubt the AGC would be willing to pay for that kind of treatment.

AT: Correct.

VS: Oh? Why not?

AT: He was 5th Donegal. One of Katherine’s.

VS: Ah.

[silence 12 s.]

VS: Is he under investigation?

AT: Was. Couldn’t pin anything specific on him, but we got him with the usual: conduct unbecoming, mutiny, treason. If he were fit, we might have dismissed the charges, given him a slap on the wrist. But as it is ... Well. Dishonorable discharge was recommended, but the paperwork hasn’t gone through yet.

EO: Repatriation to the Alliance, then. If he loves the Lyrans so much, let them deal with him.

RF: I’m from New Valencia.

AT: Ship him halfway across the Sphere? No, that would be as expensive as neurosurgery.

VS: Are there any rehabilitation programs you could enroll him in? Some way for him to usefully rejoin society while helping to repair the damage he caused.

AT: [Deep breath] Not in his condition, no.

EO: I think ComStar runs a charity for people like him. Anyway, that’s his problem, not ours.

VS: I don’t like the idea of just kicking him out on the street.

RF: Me neither.

VS: Who knows what trouble he’ll get up to?

EO: That’s an issue for the constabulary, not us. He can go hang, for all I care.

RF: Hippocratic Oath? What’s that, eh doctor?

EO: It’s better than you deserve.

VS: I’m sure he has used his time during his recovery to reflect on his actions, and wishes to contribute to society again. Isn’t that right? What do you say, Fallows? What would you do, if we released you from the hospital?

[silence 6 s.]

RF: I’d find a way to murder every last one of you, starting with Victor, his Regent, and every single member of that misbegotten family I can get my hands on.

_21 October, 3067_

The nurse and an orderly wheel him as far as the main road, and leave him there. The orderly dusts his hands and strides away, never looking back. The pleasant nurse with the pleasant face shifts her weight from foot to foot, her pleasant hands clinging to one another for emotional support. No words come. Finally, with a despairing shrug she lets go her useless pity and scurries away, as though her conscience is chasing her.

Ryce sits at the side of the road. The tombstone sky is granite black and grey. Ground cars and skimmers howl past without slowing, clouding him in exhaust and road dust. There’s a bag on his lap that contains everything he owns. That and the gnawing, burning hate in the bottom of his stomach.

A vehicle slows and stops in front of him. It’s the civilian version of an armored car, a limousine for executives in warzones or government officials fighting organized crime (or want people to think they are). The raised, V-shaped undercarriage is designed to deflect the blast of roadside bombs, the small windows are sheathed in bulletproof, rocket-proof glass, the polyurethane foam tires can’t be punctured. Ryce wonders if he is about to be kidnapped by a crime syndicate, though he can’t imagine why.

The rear door swings open, and Ryce can see inside. There are two facing rows of plush, padded seats. In one Adrestia sits, languid as an ocelot, and beside her, Doctor Vale Szarkas. Ryce stares. Wondering how some charity missionary can afford hardware like this.

“Can we give you a lift, Leftenant? Doctor Szarkas, could you give the Leftenant a hand?” Adrestia says, and then turns to Ryce as the Doctor clambers out. “You already know the doctor, I believe?”

Ryce nods to Szarkas and allows himself to be hoisted into the urban tank. The Doctor’s hands under his knees and under one arm are clammy with sweat. Ryce’s bag and wheelchair are stowed. The door closes and the vehicle rumbles, deep-throated, and begins to move.

“Nice car,” Ryce says, uncomfortable in the silence.

“The Word of Blake has a lot of nice things, Ryce Fallows,” Adrestia replies. “Well, some of them nice, some of them less so. Some of them we’d like to share with you. This is just a taste. An appetizer.”

“Word of Blake?”

Adrestia nods.

He knows little and cares less about the Word of Blake. What he knows is unimpressive: Heavily-armed militant fanatics preaching unity and technological salvation. A cult. But a technologically advanced cult. “Did you mean what you said ... about me walking again?”

Another nod. “There’s a catch, of course. We’re all adults here, we know that nothing in this universe is ever truly free. But I’m willing to offer you a deal, Ryce. You help us, and I promise we’ll put you in a BattleMech again.”

Ryce laughs in bitter despair. “That won’t help,” he says. “Can’t work the pedals.”

“Maybe you won’t need to.”

Ryce is shaking his head, “Lady, you aren’t a MechWarrior so you don’t know—” when Doctor Szarkas jerks violently forward, eyes fever-bright.

Szarkas says, “Direct Neural Interface.”

Ryce frowns, shakes his head in incomprehension.

“We surgically implant a link from your brain to the BattleMech,” Szarkas explains. “You won’t need your legs, or your hands or eyes for that matter. Information is input directly to the speech, vision and other centers of the brain, commands are issued out just by thinking them. You literally will become one with your machine.”

“Why have I never heard of this?”

“There are risks,” Szarkas admits. “The technology is still in its early, experimental stages. A trial on Solaris encountered some challenges. You’ll be receiving massive amounts of information. Some have found the experience ... intense. Overwhelming. Though I assure you, we’ve developed a compound, a mixture of sedatives and antipsychotics that should cushion the impact. After Doctor Burke Kale ... well, we’ve come very far in just a few short years.”

“So I let you drill holes in my head and pump me full of drugs, so that I can control a BattleMech.”

“That’s underselling it,” says Adrestia. “Your reaction times, accuracy, speed and agility will be unlike anything or anyone the Inner Sphere has ever seen before. Complete mastery over the tools of war, thought and action as one. The titans of history, the Black Widow, Morgan Kell, Kai Allard-Liao, will seem like sluggish, stupid children next to what you’ll be able to do.”

“Now give me the rest of it. What’s the price tag for this?”

“No need to be so suspicious. We won’t ask you to do anything you don’t already want to do,” Adrestia says. “The Regent. Yvonne Steiner-Davion. She betrayed you. You want her dead. She is a potential barrier to our plans for the future. We want her dead. When she leaves the security of the palace and heads to the Drop Port on the way to the Whitting Conference, you’ll have your chance.”

_29 October, 3067_

Security Detail Summary

Core: Guards Brigade II/141 Lexington, I/801 Motorized

Route: Guards Brigade III/141 Lexington, II & III/801 Motorized, NAC Police precincts I-IX, APP region I STC

Drop Port: Guards Brigade I/141 Lexington, 802 Motorized, NAC Police precincts XII, XIV and XIX, APP region II STC

Top Cap: Heavy Guards RCT/374 Federation Fighter Wing, NAC Police I, III HTP

Mobile Reserve: Heavy Guards RCT/A Battalion/Kelly’s Company (Remainder of A Battalion on standby at Camp Ian)

Potential threats: [1] Noncombatants (anti-Star League protests, etc.) [2] Loyalist-inspired unlawful combatants (insurgents, terrorists, saboteurs) [3] Foreign state lawful combatants

Route: Palace to On-ramp H1, First Prince Highway to Exit H9, Route D3 to Drop Port (First Prince Highway and Route D3 to be closed to all traffic between H1 and H9 beginning 0:00 LOCAL, NAC 6-man detachments at all on/off ramps)

ROE: DISCLAIMER Nothing in these rules prohibits the use of force in self-defense.

In case [1] NAC and APP will deploy to contain demonstrations and clear route. Heavy Guards RCT will only deploy if protestors present real and immediate threat to Individual Alpha or lives and safety of NAC/APP personnel (minimum force, proportional to threat). In cases [2]/[3] hostile fire will be returned to effectively neutralize the enemy. Immediate use of maximum force authorized: The safety of Individual Alpha is priority one. Mobile reserve will only deploy if hostiles utilize armor, heavy weapons or BattleMechs.

_31 October, 3067_

He is a BattleMech. Distantly, he is aware of being a thing inside the BattleMech, that he sits inside the BattleMech the way the ego sits in the brain or consciousness inhabits the body, but that is irrelevant, as uninteresting as listening to your own breathing or counting your own heartbeats.

That fragile thing inside the BattleMech isn’t important anymore. He is more than he was. His heart is more than a heart, beating with the annihilating fury of a star. His skin is more than skin, harder than diamond, impenetrable, invulnerable. His eyes are more than eyes, he can see into infrared and ultraviolet, he can see magnetic fields, hotspots and pools of cold, he can see the chemicals floating in the air, count the atoms of nitrogen and oxygen as easy as counting on his fingers.

He doesn’t have fingers. He has something better. Each arm is now something called a Diverse Optics Sunbeam 8cm Extended Range Laser, and he has a battery of Sutel Precision Line Pulse Lasers (Medium) as well as an Anti-Missile System. He doesn’t have to look down a gun sight or at a targeting reticle anymore. His eyes and weapons are one, and wherever he looks, he can instantly hit with pinpoint accuracy. All it takes is a thought.

Best of all, he has legs. He can walk, run, even leap into the air. He can walk. He can walk again.

He is in a large, rectangular room, 20.4 meters high, 40.8 wide and 62.7 long. The walls are industrial 3D-printed resin and aluminum and he could punch through them like paper. It is dark, but he can see the inside with perfect clarity. The room is featureless, save for a set of doors that take up one of the far walls, and a control booth that bulges from one wall at a height of 11.2 meters, roughly level with his upper sensors. There are three people inside. There are traces of nitroamine, dioctyl sebacate and synthetic rubber in the air.

Someone is trying to get his attention. He wants to enjoy the sensation of walking, he wants to test the power burning in his new hands, he wants to sniff and sample the air and record everything in glorious, glorious detail, but the someone is irritatingly insistent. He grudgingly listens.

“Ryce, can you hear me Ryce?”

The voice is a distraction. Why listen to such boring binary bleating when there is so much else to explore. Colors he had never imagined existing. Incredible power in even his slightest move.

“Ryce, the Regent’s convoy to the spaceport will be leaving the palace in 30 minutes. This is your one shot at her before she leaves for Tharkad. Now, there will be an armor escort, including a lance of BattleMechs so we have to be smart about the approach. Remember the plan. Ryce, are you listening to me?”

Almost idly, he targets all his weapons on the three-person booth. The range is 12.5 meters. The status indicators for all eight weapons hum a green and happy tune in his mind.

“Ryce, we can see your targeting computer pinging us. We need you to focus on the mission. If you don’t do this we can tear you right out of that BattleMech and make sure you never sit in one again. Stick you right back on the street where we found you, only without the drugs to keep you sane. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you make me.”

Hurt him? He would laugh, if he had a mouth. But he is cautious. Is there something? Ah, yes. She has planted something in his brain, a worm, a parasite, something designed to answer her commands. A subroutine that will ... aha, there it is, it will detonate something inside him. There’s a bomb inside him, that’s why he could smell explosives in the air. Now that he knows it is there, it is a simple matter to overwrite the subroutine. There. Let her try to threaten him again.

“Catatonia,” says a new voice, quieter because it is more distant from the transmitter, but still quite audible to his ears. He recognizes it as Szarkas’s voice. “Just like subject 36. Better blow it before he does anything stupid.”

“Ryce? Ryce, answer me. Ryce, I’m giving you 10 seconds. If you don’t respond, I’m shutting you down. You hear me? Ryce? Ryce! Okay, if that’s how it is. And. It’s not working. Why is it not working? I thought you idiots installed the failsafe.”

“We did but—”

Twin fiery lances of light blast through the windows of the control room, igniting the air, blowing out every pane in violent showers and glass and instantly disintegrating the three people inside. Six stuttering laser blasts follow a microsecond later, eating through the metal sides, the controls, the walls with white-hot intensity, until the control booth sags, tears free of the wall with a shriek and plunges to the ground. What is left of it smolders like a meteorite crater.

Victor, Katherine, Yvonne, Adrestia, Szarkas, they all sought to yoke him to their aims and desires. No more. They wielded people like weapons, and then discarded them as if they were nothing, mere broken toys. He is a weapon that wields itself. He has aims and desires of his own. And the first aim is to teach them that people and weapons are not toys, and you wield them at your peril.

He kicks the giant warehouse doors, sending them flying from their hinges and out into the road. Ground cars screech and swerve to avoid him. One crumples its nose against his foot and springs back. His laser carves it in two, as easy as slicing through smoke. People are running and screaming everywhere, and he leaps over them, comes crashing down on a highway, pavement buckling and cratering beneath his feet. With a thought he calls up a map, the Regent’s route highlighted, a marker appears and he breaks into a run down a narrow canyon of buildings, into the dark heart of the city.

This is still a city barely recovered from becoming a warzone. People react quickly, clearing the streets, shuttering doors and windows. Ryce can hear as a hundred uncoded broadcast channels begin to warn of his approach. A black helicopter appears over one building and he feels the tickle of its targeting system on his skin. Converging light from his arms stabs upwards, and turns the helicopter into a spinning, flaming wreck that crashes into the side of a building, spilling debris and glass down into the road below.

The news channels and public networks fall silent, replaced by machinegun bursts of coded battle language. He can’t understand, but there’s no mistaking the urgency. Something heavier than a helicopter will be along soon—ah, there were are.

There are four Typhoon urban assault vehicles on an overpass ahead, armed with new rapid-firing rotary autocannon. Their guns blaze at him and he registers a score of non-penetrating hits across his body, from shoulders to feet. He has no time to waste, so he fires at the bridge’s legs, lasers carving through concrete, making the steel support beams glow and sag, until the entire middle section collapses, spilling the Typhoons onto the road below. He vaults over the rubble and keeps running, getting close now.

He sees the convoy up ahead, stopped, trying to turn itself around. One the middle of the deserted highway, there is the Regent’s thick-plated limousine, flanked by a dozen armored cars plus about a company of motorized, missile- and laser-armed infantry. A salvo of rockets rise to greet him, and his anti-missile system picks them from the sky, spitting pinpoint lights that prick them and make them burst in flame. 

A pair of escort cars interpose themselves, trying to block his shot at the Regent’s car, but his first volley rips through them, blasting them to haze and shrapnel. He aims again. The limousine is trying to reverse, but its own bulk works against it now, and it is wedged against a burning armored car, trying to bulldoze it aside. Ryce watches, amused, and waits for his weapons to cycle. She is there, beneath his guns, at his mercy for once, rather than he at hers. Savor this moment, he thinks, taking a step forward. Then another.

He is so focused on the Regent’s car he ignores that part of him that tells him when a _Gunslinger_ appears behind him. He doesn’t see the pair of gauss slugs that bore straight through his back, just above the waist. His legs freeze mid-step, suddenly numb, and he crashes face-first to the ground.

The impact tears his connections free of the implanted sockets in his head, and suddenly he is Ryce Fallows again. Small and fragile, with small and fragile senses. He grabs the connectors now dangling limply from the cockpit ceiling and thrusts them frantically, blindly, trying to find his implant ports, but the machine is dead, the thing he was part of is dead, and he is only himself again.

When the Regent’s guards finally cut through the cockpit hatch and drag Ryce Fallows from the thing he inhabited and the weapon he’d become, he is not there, not really.

His eyes are distant, as empty and transparent as the sea.


End file.
